


Nevermore

by manic_intent



Series: A Sort of Runic Rhyme [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: In Which Thor doesn't realize Earth often takes a very dim view of refugee situations, M/M, Spoilers for Thor: Ragnarok, That Postcanon AU with no Infinity War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 01:26:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13113000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: “What is this?” Tony asked, after a long moment of stunned silence.Thor looked up, grinning. The master bedroom balcony of Tony’s Malibu house had been haphazardly renovated, and now had an unplugged mini fridge, the desk from Tony’s home office without its chairs, a makeshift shelter made of repurposed shelving and towels that was starting to list heavily to the right, and a perch of highly disgruntled, pooping ravens.“Tony! I have missed you,” Thor declared, which was the only warning Tony got before his on-and-off-and-maybe-sometimes lover strode over, hauling him a step closer with no apparent effort, kissing him hard on the mouth.





	Nevermore

**Author's Note:**

> Christmas Prompt 4/5: Thor/Tony - Ravens, eyepatch

“What is this?” Tony asked, after a long moment of stunned silence. 

Thor looked up, grinning. The master bedroom balcony of Tony’s rebuilt Malibu house had been haphazardly renovated, and now had an unplugged mini fridge, the desk from Tony’s home office without its chairs, a makeshift shelter made of repurposed shelving and towels that was starting to list heavily to the right, and a perch of highly disgruntled, pooping ravens. 

“Tony! I have missed you,” Thor declared, which was the only warning Tony got before his on-and-off-and-maybe-sometimes lover strode over, hauling him a step closer with no apparent effort, kissing him hard on the mouth. Thor always smelled odd, more like a big, clean, warm animal rather than anything human. Asgardian sweat had a faint astringent scent, their skin not quite as yielding. Tony ran his fingers curiously through Thor’s short cropped hair, and Thor pulled away. 

“The hell happened to you?” Tony asked, pitching his voice low, with a nod at Thor’s eyepatch. 

“Asgard was destroyed—”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time at the UN emergency meeting. You Asgardians. When human siblings fight, usually, at worst, they maybe just kill each other. _Without_ destroying an entire world. Just saying. You guys never invented counselling?” 

Thor shrugged, though his grin faded. “Earth was rather less welcoming than I thought.” 

“People tend to suck when you least expect it,” Tony told him. 

It was one thing to lionise a powerful alien who looked like a credible contender for any magazine’s Sexiest Man of the Year, and another thing to have to address some sort of interstellar refugee crisis. Tony could understand that, even if Thor didn’t. Hell, Tony had long lost track of the number of _local_ refugee crises out there. Large swathes of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia were still a shitshow. 

Thor wrinkled his nose. “The Captain told me about your special statue and the poem, a long time ago. We flew out to look at it.”

“The Statue of Liberty? Eh. That’s just been guidelines for a while.” Tony prodded Thor in the shoulder. “I’m sorry about how things turned out. Losing the homeworld had to be rough.” 

“We have seen our sun die. We have watched worlds fall. We have lived a very long time by your years and will live for years more yet.” Thor nuzzled Tony’s jaw, his beard ticklish, and this was familiar, at least, as was the poor give of Thor’s armour, pushed against Tony’s shirt. “It is not in our nature to regret things. Regret is poisonous.” 

“So the ravens?”

“Ah, yes. It came to my attention some time ago that your people lack a reliable way of communicating with me. So I decided to help. Since none of you have bothered to try.” 

“And… ravens?” Tony repeated, trying to catch up. 

“Ravens can carry messages,” Thor said, with studied patience. “You know, in-for-ma-tion cap-sules? You can strap them onto their legs. A little like your electronic letters, but more personable.” 

“A phone couldn’t suffice?”

“Ah, you mean those little breakable things that don’t work in space. No.” 

“How the hell would _raven-delivered messaging_ work in space?” 

“They won’t?” 

As with many things to do with Thor, Tony already felt like the world had slipped sideways into a bizarro land of strange logic, so he forced a smile. Behind Thor’s shoulder, one of the ravens fixed them both with a surprisingly contemptuous stare and pooped on Tony’s balcony.

“O-kay, big guy,” Tony said slowly, herding Thor firmly into the house, “maybe we should talk about that first. So. You’ve been away for years.” 

“Looking for the infinity gems, yes.” 

“Found any?”

“No.”

“Where’s Mjolnir?” 

Thor grimaced, looking away briefly. “My sister destroyed it.” 

“Wow, what?” When Thor didn’t answer, Tony said, “You know, I used to wish I wasn’t an only child.”

“And then?”

“The sentiment didn’t really last. My ego loved being the only child. Meant I didn’t have to share any of my extensive daddy issues. Speaking of which, what happened to your sister? And your uh, brother?” 

“Hela is possibly dead, though I’ve learned never to assume,” Thor said, rather too cheerfully, considering they were discussing the possible not-demise of someone whom Thor had blithely described before the UN as ‘My older sister, who used to conquer worlds in Asgard’s name’. “And Loki is doing well.”

“Doing well where? Very far from here, I hope?” 

“He’s on the starship.”

“On the what? You didn’t tell the UN that!” 

“He is reformed.” Thor paused. “Possibly. Very likely. For the moment, at least.” 

Tony clapped a palm slowly over his face. “Forgiveness is a virtue and all that, but your brother tried to murder me! At least once! And all of earth!” 

“Well, yes.”

“Yes what?” 

“Forgiveness, as you said, is a virtue in your culture, Tony Stark, and you are a very virtuous man, no doubt.” Thor grinned broadly, the cheeky bastard. 

“Two years has taken away the person I knew and left a little shit in his place,” Tony said, with arch regret. “And to think I nearly bankrupted myself because of you this week.” 

“I’m sure your investment will prove worthwhile,” Thor said, still not in the least grateful for Tony’s intercession. 

Tony had, after all, resolved the interstellar refugee crisis in question by buying up a large swathe of uninhabitable land off the Norwegian coast, strongarming/bribing relevant countries with the promise of free energy tech, and flying in a lot of prefabs and arc reactors. Apparently Asgardian tech didn’t work any longer, for whatever reason, but the Asgardian contingent was already industriously working with what was available. 

Most of the Asgardians were still residing in their huge-ass spaceship in orbit, but the construction of New Asgard on Earth was progressing fairly quickly. Apparently it would be viable in months, self-sufficient within the year, at which point all the patents that Stark Industries would get out of Asgardian engineering would hopefully make up for the investment several times over. Or so he’d told Pepper and the board. 

“I hope so. You’re lucky the Scandinavians still have a healthy respect for their old gods.” 

Even if the old gods in question didn’t appear to have superpowers any longer. Thor’s explanation for that was garbled and weirdly upbeat. Losing his eye, his homeworld, Mjolnir, his father, and his powers might have possibly caused some sort of temporary manic psychosis. Tony hoped not. The Avengers as they were now were already a big enough mixed bag of various psychoses. They went through one team psychiatrist a month, on their better days. 

“And do you? Have a healthy respect for your old gods?” Thor was grinning again, playfully, and when Tony shook his head and laughed, Thor picked him up, easy as you please, striding towards the bed. 

“Not sure about that. But _I’m_ getting old. Too old for any of this,” Tony confessed, as Thor set him down on the bed and started to pull off his shoes, then his belt. “I’ve missed you,” he said, in a softer voice, as Thor chuckled and nuzzled the inseam of Tony’s thigh, against soft fabric. “Wish you were here for the dustup a while back.” 

“Ah, yes, Pepper explained it to me many times. Sometimes friends have conflicts too,” Thor said, kissing Tony’s knee. “At least you didn’t destroy your homeworld in the process.” 

“Silver lining, huh.” 

“For a species that is so short lived, yours is a surprisingly violent one.” 

“Yeah, you’d see more of that soon.” Norway’s decision to accept an influx of space refugees, however well-intentioned and well-oiled by Tony’s money, hadn’t exactly gone down well. There were protests staged around the globe still, by various factions. Nationalists who were anti-refugee on principle, ‘humanists’ who wanted the resources shunted to human refugees first, conspiracy theorists who thought the Asgardian wave was the first step towards colonisation of Earth—

“Tony.” Thor nuzzled Tony’s throat, flicking him out of his gloomy downward spiral. “I appreciate your help.”

“You’re welcome. Not that I expected you to appreciate it,” Tony said, because despite what Pepper thought, Tony _did_ understand people. And aliens.

“Yes, I thought you might. But Heimdall told me to tell you anyway.”

“Heimdall? The dour guy with the dreads and the big sword?” Tony vaguely remembered someone like that at the UN meeting. Heimdall had radiated a sort of grave maturity that Asgardian royalty of either stripe tended to lack. “That’s all right. You guys have been through a lot. Glad I could help.”

“Exactly.” 

“What?” 

“That’s what I told Valkyrie and Heimdall. That you’d help.” Thor beamed. “Nothing to it. They thought I’d be bad at diplomacy. I told them, _pssh_ , I’m _really good_ at diplomacy. Diplomacy is just talking to people and getting them to like you. Everyone likes me. I told them, they’d probably be just as good at diplomacy too, if Valkyrie drank a bit less, and Heimdall didn’t stare at everyone like he knows all your secrets, which is true, but he shouldn’t, and Loki… just needs to be less… _Loki_.” 

“That must have gone down well.” 

“Not particularly. I am king now and they should listen to me,” Thor said sadly. 

“Well, your Majesty,” Tony said, smiling invitingly, because it was impossible to be angry with Thor, “let’s try a different kinda diplomacy tonight, eh?” 

He stroked his fingers through Thor’s short-cropped hair. Thor grinned, still so puppyishly self-assured: fate itself tended to conspire to justify Thor’s irrepressible faith in the universe. Sometimes Tony envied him a little. They kissed as they peeled off armour and clothes, until Tony was running his hands greedily over packed muscle. This was another thing that Tony envied, beyond Thor’s power and his long, long life. Asgard had figured out how to bioengineer perfection, and then they had made Thor.

Tony had never claimed to be altruistic. Sinking his fortune into the Asgard project might have been seen that way, but Pepper probably knew better. She’d been dropping snide comments ever since Tony had rushed Stark Industries’ legal team through due diligence, then promptly ignored all their recommendations. Tony would have paid more if he had to, to have Thor chuckling like this against his ear, as though he’d never had to doubt his trust in Tony or the generosity of the human spirit. 

Too late now to get properly cleaned up. Thor didn’t seem to care. He spat on his palm and leaned up on an elbow, watching Tony avidly as they thrust against each other, as though there was nothing more fascinating in the world than watching Tony moan and arch and tremble in his grasp. Here was someone who had watched human civilisation itself rise from the rude violence of bows and spears to a grander and more bestial theatre of suffering, and who yet still had faith. Who still looked at Tony as though he and his entire flawed species were worth as much as the stars. 

It humbled Tony on better days. He was pinned by the kindness in Thor’s remaining eye, by its awful simplicity. Somewhere along the line Thor had decided that Tony was a good man, and nothing would shake that. Thor moaned against his ear, lust shaking into a rumbling laugh as Tony whined and pumped his hips, scrabbling at the graceful arch of Thor’s back. “Good,” Thor murmured, his voice rough, a prayer against Tony’s ear, then his Allspeak translator cut out, offering only a string of guttural syllables, a prayer offered in a language that was old before humans had invented their own.

Afterwards, Thor kissed Tony on the forehead, leaving the faint impression of a grin. “I missed this.” He bent, brushing his lips over the new arc reactor, once removed, now returned–its presence made Tony feel better about the world, in a way. More secure. Tony braced himself automatically, waiting for the usual uptick of power, but nothing happened. At his startled blink, Thor lifted his head. “I’ve told you.” 

“Yes, you said something about how… Asgard powers your abilities… something about ley technology that nobody understood, even me, and now that Asgard is gone you’re just like the rest of us peons?”

“Well,” Thor said, rubbing his fingertips fondly over the edge of the reactor, “just a little. I have been thinking. You should buy more land.”

“What?” 

Thor yawned. “There were other refugees mentioned. Human refugees, made landless by your wars, I hear. They will be welcome in New Asgard. I spoke to the new Asgardian Council and they are in agreement. But we need more land to house them.” 

Tony rubbed a hand slowly over his face. “Re-home all the refugees in the world? I don’t believe anyone in the world has that much money, sadly.” 

“Heimdall said that you intend to recoup the money you spent financing our resettlement on Earth with patents from Asgardian technology. We’ve analysed your rudimentary financial system and concluded that you’d make far more profit out of our technology than the land is worth. So you should reinvest it.” 

Tony drew back. Thor was grinning, and there was a sharpness to his amusement. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Thor was far more than the easygoing, surfer blonde face that he preferred to present to the human world. “You’re cleaning me out,” Tony said, with mock sadness, “and we’re not even married.” 

“Perhaps something can be arranged,” Thor said, and laughed when Tony started sputtering.

#

Valkyrie showed up the next morning with a message for Thor, which was a kinder way of saying that Tony had found Valkyrie curiously working her way through Tony’s collection of whiskies when he had come out of the bedroom in the morning, and had nearly had a heart attack.

“Midgardian drink is weak,” Valkyrie told Tony, sprawled in an armchair with a 50 year old bottle of Macallan in one hand, distinctly out of place in her silver and blue armour across Tony’s minimalist furniture. 

“I’m sorry, who are you again?” Tony said, unfreezing from the act of reaching for the coffee machine.

Valkyrie rolled her eyes, taking a long swig from the bottle. She uncurled unsteadily from the couch and walked through strewn bottles to the balcony, where she reached out and patted one of the ravens, impervious to its irritated pecking. Valkyrie cooed at it, whispering something, and it cocked its head, settling down. Fascinated, Tony stared, all the way until Thor ambled down in jeans and a borrowed shirt that stretched over his shoulders. He grinned, greeting Valkyrie with a phrase that Allspeak didn’t translate, and Valkyrie sniffed and said something in response. Then she smirked at Tony, looked him up and down, made another untranslated comment, and stalked off, grabbing another bottle of whiskey as she went. 

“How did she get in?” Tony asked, too bleary for outrage. “F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“She has Asgardian diplomatic immunity, sir.” 

“That doesn’t mean that you don’t alert me when she climbs over the gate, or however she managed to get into here.” Tony fiddled with the coffee machine, wrangling it into making him a cup. “What did she want?” 

“I’m wanted back on the starship. State matters.” Thor ambled over, nuzzling Tony against his jaw. 

“Oh yes? And what did she say about me?”

“She said that Asgardian royalty tends to have terrible taste in bedmates.” 

Tony snorted. “Some would agree.” Including Pepper. 

“I don’t.” Thor brushed a kiss over Tony’s cheek, then another, gentler, over his eyes. “I’ll see you tonight.” 

“Maybe. If I don’t have to sell my house to upkeep your dreams of expanded nationhood.” 

“It’ll be worth it,” Thor said, smug again, and kissed Tony on the mouth. “In the meantime, the ravens.”

“Yes, please get them the hell out of my house. I like birds. But within reason.” Huge black birds that weren’t remotely housetrained were definitely not within an acceptable spectrum. 

Thor stared at him with a paternal sort of disappointment. “I’ve explained about the ravens. You tie a—”

“ _Thor_.”

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent.tumblr.com  
> \--  
>  ~~I've managed to erase from my brain what happened in IM3 so I don't even remember if Tony still has the arc reactor in his chest >_> going to assume so.~~ Apparently not XD;; But Tony without a reactor feels kinda weird to me, so I'll just add flavour copy to put the inert metal alloy one back. Good to have a power source on the fly since he clearly hasn't retired as Iron Man.


End file.
